Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Chiropractor, Run, Lift, Bike

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see my chiropractor. Normally, when I'm training for a 100, I see him every 3 weeks or so. On the day of our last scheduled appointment, he was sick and had to cancel. It was two weeks later until he had another opening, so it had been 5 weeks since I'd seen him. In those 5 weeks, I'd done three runs of 20 or longer and my stride was a mess. My left piriformis is bothering me more and more, my stride feels unbalanced, and running just hasn't been as much fun as normal. I'm not hurt, but there's no flow to my running. Everything feels choppy and that takes some of the joy out of just moving down the road or trail.

As the chiropractor examined me yesterday, he told me that he saw some issues with my hips that were different than he'd ever seen before. He worked on me longer than normal yesterday and suggested that I return in 2 weeks. Overall, my run home last night felt better, but the left piriformis remains somewhat tight. He wants we to really focus on stretching and using heat in that area until I next see him.

This morning, I went to the gym to lift, and just like last week, I changed things around a bit. I did the scheduled lifts, sets and reps, but decreased the weight and decreased the rest intervals. I think I'm going to continue to lift like this for the next couple months and focus on strength again after Western States. Lifting like this is more of a metabolic workout than a strength workout and it doesn't leave me as tired for running.

Tonight after work, I'm going to go out for an easy road ride on my bike. Tomorrow, I'll run 10 miles including some tempo work, and I don't want to trash my legs on my first bike ride of the year.

We're having amazing weather right now that will last through Friday or so, when some rain will show up. I'm hoping it's dry for my race on Sunday. In past years, it's been hot for this race, but it looks like it may be fairly cool this year. To be honest, the heat is better for my training right now, but I can't really control the weather, so I just take what I get.